that his friend was sincere, and that the suspi cions to which this mysterious affair gave rise were altogether unfounded.

Benares charge. Such a man might have conscience, to stand any longer by Hastings. thought that the offences of Hastings had been The business, he said, was too bad. Mr. Wil atoned for by great services, and might, on that | berforce, we are bound to add, fully believed ground, have voted against the impeachment on both charges. With great diffidence, we give it as our opinion, that the most correct course would, on the whole, have been to impeach on the Rohilla charge, and to acquit on the Benares charge. Had the Benares charge appeared to us in the same light in which it appeared to Mr. Pitt, we should, without hesitation, have voted for acquittal on that charge. The one course which it is inconceivable that any man of a tenth part of Mr. Pitt's abilities can have honestly taken, was the course which he took. He acquitted Hastings on the Rohilla charge. He softened down the Benares charge till it became no charge at all, and then he pronounced that it contained matter for impeachment.

Nor must it be forgotten, that the principal reason assigned by the ministry for not impeaching Hastings on account of the Rohilla war was, that the delinquencies of the early part of his administration had been atoned for by the excellence of the later part. Was it not most extraordinary, that men who had held this language could afterwards vote that the later part of his administration furnished matter for no less than twenty articles of impeachment? They first contended that the conduct of Hastings in 1780 and 1781 was so highly meritorious, that, like works of supererogation in the Catholic theology, it ought to be efficacious for the cancelling of former offences; and they then prosecuted him for his conduct in 1780 and 1781.

Those suspicions, indeed, were such as it is painful to mention. The friends of Hastings, most of whom, it is to be observed, generally supported the administration, affirmed that the motive of Pitt and Dundas was jealousy. Hastings was personally a favourite with the king. He was the idol of the East India Com pany and of its servants. If he were absolved by the Commons, seated among the Lords, admitted to the Board of Control, closely allied with the strong-minded and imperious Thurlow, was it not almost certain that he would soon draw to himself the entire management of Eastern affairs? Was it not possible that he might become a formidable rival in the cabinet? It had probably got abroad that very singular communications had taken place between Thurlow and Major Scott; and that, if the first Lord of the Treasury was afraid to recommend Hastings for a peerage, the Chancellor was ready to take the responsibility of that step on himself. Of all ministers, Pitt was the least likely to submit with patience to such an encroachment on his functions. If the Commons impeached Hastings, all danger was at an end. The proceeding, however it might terminate, would probably last some years. In the mean time, the accused person would be excluded from honours and public employ ments, and could scarcely venture even to pay his duty at court. Such were the motives at

young minister, whose ruling passion was generally believed to be avarice of power.

The general astonishment was the greater,tributed, by a great part of the public, to the because, only twenty-four hours before, the members on whom the Ministry could depend aad received the usual notes from the treasury, The prorogation soon interrupted the disbegging them to be in their places and to vote cussions respecting Hastings. In the following against Mr. Fox's motion. It was asserted by year those discussions were resumed. The Mr. Hastings, that early on the morning of the charge touching the spoliation of the Begums very day on which the debate took place, Dun- was brought forward by Sheridan, in a speech das called on Pitt, woke him, and was closeted which was so imperfectly reported that it may with him many hours. The result of this con- be said to be wholly lost; but which was, ference was a determination to give up the late without doubt, the most elaborately brilliant of Governor-General to the vengeance of the Op- all the productions of his ingenious mind. The position. It was impossible even for the most impression which it produced was such as has powerful minister to carry all his followers never been equalled. He sat down, not merely with him in so strange a course. Several per- amidst cheering, but amidst the loud clapping sons high in office, the Attorney-General, Mr. | of hands, in which the Lords below the bar, Grenville, and Lord Mulgrave voted against Mr. Pitt. But the devoted adherents who stood by the head of the government without asking questions, were sufficiently numerous to turn the scale. A hundred and nineteen members voted for Mr. Fox's motion; seventy-nine against it. Dundas silently followed Pitt.

That good and great man, the late William Wilberforce, often related the events of this emarkable night. He described the amazement of the House, and the bitter reflections which were muttered against the prime minister by some of the habitual supporters of government. Pitt himself appeared to feel that his conduct required some explanation. He left the treasury-bench, sat for some time by Mr. Wilberforce, and very earnestly declared that he had found it impossible, as a man of

and the strangers in the gallery, joined. The excitement of the House was such that no other speaker could obtain a hearing, and the debate was adjourned. The impression made by this remarkable display of eloquence on severe and experienced critics, whose discernment may be supposed to have been quickened by emulation, was deep and permanent. Mr. Windham, twenty years later, said that the speech deserved all its fame, and was, in spite of some faults of taste, such as were seldom wanting either in the literary or in the parliamentary performances of Sheridan, the greatest that had been delivered within the memory of man. Mr. Fox, about the same time, being asked by the late Lord Holland what was the best speech ever made in the House of Commons assigned the first place, without hesitation, to

the great oration of Sheridan on the Oude was a spectacle so well calculated to strike a charge.

When the debate was resumed, the tide ran so strongly against the accused, that his friends were coughed and scraped down. Pitt declared himself for Sheridan's motion; and the question was carried by a hundred and seventy-five votes against sixty-eight.

The Opposition, flushed with victory, and strongly supported by the public sympathy, proceeded to bring forward a succession of charges relating chiefly to pecuniary transactions. The friends of Hastings were discouraged, and, having now no hope of being able to avert an impeachment, were not very strenuous in their exertions. At length the House, having agreed to twenty articles of charge, directed Burke to go before the Lords, and to impeach the late Governor-General of High Crimes and Misdemeanours. Hastings was at the same time arrested by the sergeantat-arms, and carried to the bar of the Peers.

The session was now within ten days of its close. It was, therefore, impossible that any progress could be made in the trial till the next year. Hastings was admitted to bail; and further proceedings were postponed till the Houses should reassemble.

When Parliament met in the following winter, the Commons proceeded to elect a committee for managing the impeachment. Burke stood at the head, and with him were associated most of the leading members of the Opposition. But when the name of Francis was read, a fierce contention arose. It was said that Francis and Hastings were notoriously on bad terms; that they had been at feud during many years; that on one occasion their mutual aversion had impelled them to seek each other's lives; and that it would be improper and indelicate to select a private enemy to be a public accuser. It was urged on the other side with great force, particularly by Mr. Windham, that impartiality, though the first duty of a judge, had never been reckoned among the qualities of an advocate; that in the ordinary administration of criminal justice | in England, the aggrieved party, the very last person who ought to be admitted into the jurybox, is the prosecutor; that what was wanted in a manager was, not that he should be free from bias, but that he should be energetic, able, well-informed, and active. The ability and information of Francis were admitted; and the very animosity with which he was reproached, whether a virtue or a vice, was at least a pledge for his energy and activity. It seems difficult to refute these arguments. But the inveterate hatred borne by Francis to Hastings had excited general disgust. The House decided that Francis should not be a manager. Pitt voted with the majority, Dundas with the minority.

highly cultivated, a reflecting, an imaginative mind. All the various kinds of interest which belong to the near and to the distant, to the present and to the past, were collected on one spot and in one hour. All the talents and all the accomplishments which are developed by liberty and civilization were now displayed, with every advantage that could be derived both from co-operation and from contrast. Every step in the proceedings carried the mind either backward, through many troubled centuries, to the days when the foundations of the constitution were laid; or far away, over boundless seas and deserts, to dusky nations living under strange stars, worshipping strange gods, and writing strange characters from right to left. The High Court of Parliament was to sit, according to forms handed down from the days of the Plantagenets, on an Englishman accused of exercising tyranny over the lord of the holy city of Benares, and the ladies of the princely house of Oude.

The place was worthy of such a trial. It was the great hall of William Rufus; the hall which had resounded with acclamations at the inauguration of thirty kings; the hall which had witnessed the just sentence of Bacon and the just absolution of Somers; the hall where the eloquence of Strafford had for a moment awed and melted a victorious party inflamed with just resentment, the hall where Charles had confronted the High Court of Justice with the placid courage which has half redeemed his fame. Neither military nor civil pomp was wanting. The avenues were lined with gre nadiers. The streets were kept clear by cavalry. The peers, robed in gold and ermine, were marshalled by the heralds under Garter King-at-Arms. The judges, in their vestments of state, attended to give advice on points of law. Near a hundred and seventy Lords, threefourths of the Upper House, as the Upper House then was, walked in solemn order from their usual place of assembling to the tribunal. The junior baron present led the way-Lord Heathfield, recently ennobled for his memo rable defence of Gibraltar against the fleets and armies of France and Spain. The long procession was closed by the Duke of Norfolk, Earl Marshal of the realm, by the great dignitaries, and by the brothers and sons of the king. Last of all came the Prince of Wales, conspicuous by his fine person and noble bearing. The gray old walls were hung with scarlet. The long galleries were crowded by such an audience as has rarely excited the fears or the emulation of an orator. There were gathered together, from all parts of a great, free, enlightened, and prosperous realm, grace and female loveliness, wit and learning, the representatives of every science and of every art. were seated around the queen the fair-haireu In the mean time, the preparations for the young daughters of the house of Brunswick. trial had proceeded rapidly; and on the 13th There the ambassadors of great kings and of February, 1788, the sittings of the Court commonwealths gazed with admiration on a commenced. There have been spectacles more spectacle which no other country in the world dazzling to the eye, more gorgeous with jewel- could present. There Siddons, in the prime lery and cloth of gold, more attractive to grown- of her majestic beauty, looked with emotion on up children, than that which was then exhi-a scene surpassing all the imitations of the bited at Westminster; but, perhaps, there never stage. There the historian of the Roman Em

There

pire thought of the days when Cicero pleaded Burke at their head, appeared in full dress. the cause of Sicily against Verres; and when, The collectors of gossip did not fail to remar before a senate which had still some show of that even Fox, generally so regardless of his freedom, Tacitus thundered against the op- appearance, had paid to the illustrious tribunal pressor of Africa. There were seen, side by the compliment of wearing a bag and sword. side, the greatest painter and the greatest scho- Pitt had refused to be one of the conductors of lar of the age. The spectacle had allured the impeachment; and his commanding, copiReynolds from that easel which has preserved ous, and sonorous eloquence was wanting to to us the thoughtful foreheads of so many that great muster of various talents. Age and writers and statesmen, and the sweet smiles of blindness had unfitted Lord North for the duso many noble matrons. It had induced Parr ties of a public prosecutor; and his friends to suspend his labours in that dark and pro- were left without the help of his excellent found mine from which he had extracted a vast sense, his tact, and his urbanity. But, in spite treasure of erudition-a treasure too often bu- of the absence of these two distinguished memried in the earth, too often paraded with inju-bers of the Lower House, the box in which the dicious and inelegant ostentation; but still pre-managers stood contained an array of speakcious, massive, and splendid. There appeared ers such as perhaps had not appeared together the voluptuous charms of her to whom the heir since the great age of Athenian eloquence. of the throne had in secret plighted his faith. There stood Fox and Sheridan, the English There, too, was she, the beautiful mother of a Demosthenes and the English Hyperides beautiful race, the Saint Cecilia, whose deli-There was Burke, ignorant, indeed, or neglicate features, lighted up by love and music, art has rescued from the common decay. There were the members of that brilliant society which quoted, criticised, and exchanged repartees, under the rich peacock hangings of Mrs. Montague. And there the ladies, whose lips, more persuasive than those of Fox himself, had carried the Westminster election against palace and treasury, shone round Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire.

gent of the art of adapting his reasonings and his style to the capacity and taste of his hearers; but in aptitude of comprehension and richness of imagination superior to every orator, ancient or modern. There, with eyes reverentially fixed on Burke, appeared the finest gentleman of the age-his form developed by every manly exercise-his face beaming with intelligence and spirit-the ingenious, the chivalrous, the high-souled Windham. Nor, The Sergeants made proclamation. Hast- though surrounded by such men, did the ings advanced to the bar, and bent his knee, youngest manager pass unnoticed. At an age The culprit was indeed not unworthy of that when most of those who distinguish themgreat presence. He had ruled an extensive selves in life are still contending for prizes and populous country, had made laws and and fellowships at college, he had won for treaties, had sent forth armies, had set up and himself a conspicuous place in Parliament. pulled down princes. And in his high place No advantage of fortune or connection was he had so borne himself, that all had feared wanting that could set off to the height his him, that most had loved him, and that hatred splendid talents and his unblemished honour. itself could deny him no title to glory, except At twenty-three he had been thought worthy virtue. He looked like a great man, and not to be ranked with the veteran statesmen who like a bad man. A person small and ema- appeared as the delegates of the British Comciated, yet deriving dignity from a carriage mons, at the bar of the British nobility. All which, while it indicated deference to the who stood at that bar, save him alone, are court, indicated also habitual self-possession gone-culprit, advocates, accusers. To the and self-respect; a high and intellectual fore- generation which is now in the vigour of life, head; a brow pensive, but not gloomy; a he is the sole representative of a great age mouth of inflexible decision; a face pale and which has passed away. But those who, worn, but serene, on which was written, as within the last ten years, have listened with legibly as under the great picture in the Coun-delight, till the morning sun shone on the cil-chamber at Calcutta, Mens æqua in arduis;such was the aspect with which the great proconsul presented himself to his judges.

tapestries of the House of Lords, to the lofty and animated eloquence of Charles Earl Grey, are able to form some estimate of the powers of a race of men among whom he was not the foremost.

His counsel accompanied him, men all of whom were afterwards raised by their talents and learning to the highest posts in their pro- The charges and the answers of Hastings fession, the bold and strong-minded Law, were first read. This ceremony cccupied two afterwards Chief Justice of the King's Bench; whole days, and was rendered less tedious he more humane and eloquent Dallas, after-than it would otherwise have been, by the wards Chief Justice of the Common Pleas; and Plomer, who, nearly twenty years later, successfully conducted in the same high court the defence of Lord Melville, and subsequently became Vice-chancellor and master of the Rolls.

But neither the culprit nor his advocates attacted so much notice as the accusers. In the midst of the blaze of red drapery, a space had been fitted up with green benches and

for the Commons. The managers, with

silver voice and just emphasis of Cowper, the clerk of the court, a near relation of the amiable poet. On the third day Burke rose. Four sittings of the court were occupied by his opening speech, which was intended to be a general introduction to all the charges. With an exuberance of thought and a splendour of diction which more than satisfied the highly. raised expectation of the audience, he described the character and institutions of the natives of India; recounted the circumstances in which

June was now far advanced. The session could not last much longer, and the progress which had been made in the impeachment was not very satisfactory. There were twenty charges. On two only of these had even the case for the prosecution been heard; and it was now a year since Hastings had been admitted to bail.

the Asiatic empire of Britain had originated; | his fath、might have envied, to sink back, as and set forth the constitution of the Company if exhausted, into the arms of Burke, who and of the English Presidencies. Having thus hugged him with the energy of generous admiattempted to communicate to his hearers an ration! idea of Eastern society, as vivid as that which existed in his own mind, he proceeded to arraign the administration of Hastings, as systematically conducted in defiance of morality and public law. The energy and pathos of the great orator extorted expressions of unwonted admiration even from the stern and hostile Chancellor; and, for a moment, seemed to pierce even the resolute heart of the defend- The interest taken by the public in the trial ant. The ladies in the galleries, unaccustomed was great when the court began to sit, and to such displays of eloquence, excited by the rose to the height when Sheridan spoke on the sclemnity of the occasion, and perhaps not un-charge relating to the Begums. From that willing to display their taste and sensibility, time the excitement went down fast. The were in a state of uncontrollable emotion. Handkerchiefs were pulled out; smelling-bottles were handed round; hysterical sobs and screams were heard; and Mrs. Sheridan was carried out in a fit. At length the orator concluded. Raising his voice till the old arches of Irish oak resounded-"Therefore," said he, "hath it with all confidence been ordered by the Commons of Great Britain, that I impeach Warren Hastings of high crimes and misdemeanours. I impeach him in the name of the Commons House of Parliament, whose trust he has betrayed. I impeach him in the name of the English nation, whose ancient honour he has sullied. I impeach him in the name of the people of India, whose rights he has trodden under foot, and whose country he has turned into a desert. Lastly, in the name of human nature itself, in the name of both sexes, in the name of every age, in the name of every rank, I impeach the common enemy and oppressor of all!"

spectacle had lost the attraction of novelty. The great displays of rhetoric were over. What was behind was not of a nature to entice men of letters from their books in the morning, or to tempt ladies who had left the masquerade at two, to be out of bed before eight. There remained examinations and cross-examinations. There remained statements of accounts. There remained the reading of papers, filled with words unintelligible to English ears-with lacs and crores, zemindars and aumils, sunnuds and perwannahs, jagħires and nuzzurs. There remained bickerings, not always carriec on with the best taste or with the best temper between the managers of the impeachment and the counsel for the defence, particularly between Mr. Burke and Mr. Law. There remained the endless marches and counter-marches of the Peers between their house and the hall; for as often as a point of law was to be dis cussed their lordships retired to discuss it apart; and the consequence was, as the late Lord Stanhope wittily said, that the judges walked and the trial stood still.

When the deep murmur of various emotions had subsided, Mr. Fox rose to address the Lords respecting the course of proceeding to be fol- It is to be added, that in the spring of 1788, lowed. The wish of the accuser was, that the when the trial commenced, no important quescourt would bring to a close the investigation tion, either of domestic or foreign policy, exof the first charge before the second was open-cited the public mind. The proceeding in ed. The wish of Hastings and his counsel was, that the managers should open all the charges, and produce all the evidence for the prosecution, before the defence began. The Lords retired to their own house, to consider the question. The Chancellor took the side of Hastings. Lord Loughborough, who was now in opposition, supported the demand of the managers. The division showed which way the inclination of the tribunal leaned. A majority of near three to one decided in favour of the course for which Hastings contended.

When the court sat again, Mr. Fox, assisted by Mr. Grey, opened the charge respecting Cheyte Sing, and several days were spent in reading papers and hearing witnesses. The next article was that relating to the Princesses of Oade. The conduct of this part of the case was intrusted to Sheridan. The curiosity of the public to hear him was unbounded. His sparkling and highly-finished declamation lasted two days; but the Hall was crowded to suffocation during the whole time. It was said that fifty guineas had been paid for a single ticket. Sheridan, when he concluded, contrived, with a knowledge of stage-effect which

Westminster Hall, therefore, naturally excited most of the attention of Parliament and of the public. It was the one great event of that season. But in the following year, the king's illness, the debates cn the regency, the expectation of a change of ministry, completely diverted public attention from Indian affairs; and within a fortnight after George the Third had returned thanks in St. Paul's for his recovery, the StatesGeneral of France met at Versailles. In the midst of the agitation produced by those events, the impeachment was for a time almost forgotten."

The trial in the hall went on languidly. In the session of 1788, when the proceedings had the interest of novelty, and when the Peers had little other business before them, only thirty. five days were given to the impeachment. In 1789, the Regency Bill occupied the Upper House till the session was far advanced. When the king recovered, the circuits were beginning. The judges left town; the Lords waited for the return of the oracles of jurisprudence; and the consequence was, that during the whole year only seventeen days were given to the case of Hastings. It was clear that the matter

would be protracted to a length unprecedented | Burke was deeply hurt. But his zeal for what · in the annals of criminal law.

he considered as the cause of justice and mer. cy triumphed over his personal feelings. He received the censure of the House with dignity and meekness, and declared that no personal mortification or humiliation should induce hin to flinch from the sacred duty which he had undertaken.

In the following year, the Parliament was dissolved; and the friends of Hastings entertained a hope that the new House of Commons might not be disposed to go on with the impeachment. They began by maintaining that the whole proceeding was terminated by the dissolution. Defeated on this point, they made a direct motion that the impeachment should be dropped; but they were defeated by the combined forces of the government and the opposition. It was, however, resolved that, for the sake of expedition, many of the articles should be withdrawn. In truth, had not some such measure been adopted, the trial would have lasted till the defendant was in his grave.

In truth, it is impossible to deny that impeachment, though it is a fine ceremony, and though it may have been useful in the seventeenth century, is not a proceeding from which much good can now be expected. Whatever confidence may be placed in the decisions of the Peers on an appeal arising out of ordinary Litigation, it is certain that no man has the least confidence in their impartiality, when a great public functionary, charged with a great state crime, is brought to their bar. They are all politicians. There is hardly one among them, whose vote on an impeachment may not be confidently predicted before a witness has been examined; and even were it possible to rely on their justice, they would still be quite unfit to try such a cause as that of Hastings. They sit only during half the year. They have to transact much legislative and much judicial business. The law-lords, whose advice is required to guide the unlearned majority, are employed daily in administering justice else- At length, in the spring of 1795, the decision where. It is impossible, therefore, that during was pronounced, nearly eight years after Hasta busy session, the Upper House should give ings had been brought by the sergeant-at-arms more than a few days to an impeachment. To of the Commons to the bar of the Lords. On expect that their lordships would give up par- the last day of this great procedure, the public tridge-shooting, in order to bring the greatest curiosity, long suspended, seemed to be redelinquent to speedy justice, or to relieve ac-vived. Anxiety about the judgment there cused innocence by speedy acquittal, would be unreasonable indeed. A well constituted tribunal, sitting regularly six days in the week, and nine hours in the day, would have finished the trial of Hastings in less than three months. The Lords had not finished their work in seven years.

The result ceased to be a matter of doubt, from the time when the Lords resolved that they would be guided by the rules of evidence which are received in inferior courts of the realm. Those rules, it is well known, exclude much information which would be quite sufficient to determine the conduct of any reasonable man, in the most important transactions of private life. Those rules, at every assizes, save scores of culprits, whom judges, jury, and spectators, firmly believed to be guilty. But when those rules were rigidly applied to of fences committed many years before, at the distance of many thousand miles, conviction was, of course, out of the question. We do not blame the accused and his counsel for availing themselves of every legal advantage in order to obtain an acquittal. But it is clear hat an acquittal so obtained cannot be pleaded in bar of the judgment of history.

Several attempts were made by the friends of Hastings to put a stop to the trial. In 1789 they proposed a vote of censure upon Burke, for some violent language which he had used respecting the death of Nuncomar, and the connection between Hastings and Impey. Burke was then unpopular in the last degree both with the House and with the country. The asperity and indecency of some expressions which he had used during the debates on the Regency had annoyed even his warmest friends. The vote of censure was carried, and those who had moved it hoped hat the managers would resign in disgust.

could be none; for it had been fully ascertained that there was a great majority for the defendant. But many wished to see the pageant, and the hall was as much crowded as on the first day. But those who, having been present on the first day, now bore a part in the proceedings of the last, were few, and most of those few were altered men.

As Hastings himself said, the arraignment had taken place before one generation, and the judgment was pronounced by another. The spectator could not look at the woolsack, or at the red benches of the peers, or at the green benches of the Commons, without seeing something that reminded him of the instability of all human things;-of the instability of power, and fame, and life, of the more lamenta ble instability of friendship. The great seal was borne before Lord Loughborough, who, when the trial commenced, was a fierce opponent of Mr. Pitt's government, and who was now a member of that government; while Thurlow, who presided in the court when it first sat, estranged from all his old allies, sat scowling among the junior barons. Of a hun. dred and sixty nobles who walked in the procession on the first day, sixty had been laid in their family vaults. Still more affecting must have been the sight of the managers' box. What had become of that fair fellowship, so closely bound together by public and private ties, so resplendent with every talent and accomplishment? It had been scattered by ca lamities more bitter than the bitterness of death. The great chiefs were still living, and still in the full vigour of their genius. But their friendship was at an end. It had been violently and publicly dissolved with tears and stormy reproaches. If those men, once so dear to each other, were now compelled to meet for the purpose of managing the impeachment